Home decor startups use 3D and virtual reality for growth

According to Anuj Srivastava, CEO of Livspace, the home design and décor market in India is likely to grow to over $45 billion by 2017.Shashwati Shankar | ET Bureau | November 26, 2015, 09:26 IST

Browsing online for a home-decor plan that would match his tastes with his budget, led Bengaluru-based Arun Shenoy to Furdo, a company that creates three-dimensional previews of home interiors.

Shenoy, picked a theme and in turn was presented with a virtual walk-through of his new home with a mix of 3D and augmented reality tools.

"The most convenient aspect to this service was the ability to do it in stages and within a budget of Rs 6 to Rs 12 lakh," says the 31-year old analyst, one of several customers turning to technology-led home decor startups. Since Furdo launched its product in July, it has designed 62 homes so far, aiming to reach 750 homes by the end of the year.

"We have seen a 30 per cent month on month growth," says Ishwar Sundararaman, the Furdo cofounder,

According to Anuj Srivastava, CEO of Livspace, the home design and décor market in India is likely to grow to over $45 billion by 2017, out of which 4-5 per cent of the companies are likely to enter the tech space. "Combining technology and data science, as well as introducing 3D, augmented or virtual reality experiences, directly addresses the new-age consumers need for ‘designer homes’ without going through lengthy, time consuming iterations," says Srivastava.

In September, Livspace acquired YoFloor, a mobile platform that offers a virtual trial room for home design decisions. Archit Rathi, founder of YoFloor says that the aim of the mobile platform was not just to help the consumers but also ease out work for designers by enhancing their productivity levels with the tools that the application offers.

Foyr, an online interior home décor startup has moved from a local market place listing model to a transaction based ecommerce model. Their 3D proprietary technology is both on the website and on the mobile application.

"In one and a half months, we saw over 4,200 app downloads," says Shailesh Goswami, founder of Foyr. Users can pick a room of their choice, for instance the living room, it can then be viewed in 3D and customised, from checking prices to changing floors, paintings and zooming in and out of the room till the perfect look is achieved.